Everything you need to know about HTC Exodus

Everything you need to know about HTC Exodus

HTC introduces blockchain phone – HTC Exodus

As part of what HTC claims is its “effort to expand the blockchain ecosystem,” the company introduced its latest blockchain phone known as the HTC Exodus this week. HTC sees the Exodus as a handset that will let owners keep their data – and blockchain currencies – private and secure on the device rather than in the cloud, where your sensitive information may be easier to extract and tamper with. The announcement comes almost one week before the launch of its latest flagship, the HTC U12. Its bid for elevated smartphone security also comes at a time of peak scrutiny for security and data privacy. However, it is not the first time the concept of a blockchain smartphone has been introduced. In April, Sirin Labs announced that Foxconn will manufacture its blockchain powered smartphone, FINNEY.

HTC ‘s vision for the future of smartphones

The Taiwanese firm revealed its vision for the future of smartphones at the Consensus 2018 cryptocurrency conference in New York, explaining how it will utilise blockchain technology to support cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

“Our vision is to expand the blockchain ecosystem by creating the world’s first phone dedicated to decentralized applications and security,” HTC states on a website dedicated to the new device.

They go on to say “With the release of the HTC Exodus we can now make this a reality… we believe we can help reshape the internet.”

HTC Exodus Design

HTC hasn’t released any official images of what the Exodus will look like. Instead, the company posted a rough sketch of what appears to be the smartphone’s components. Please see below.

HTC Exodus Spec

There aren’t many details when it comes to spec either. What we do know is that the phone will feature a native cryptocurrency wallet. The HTC Exodus will also support decentralized apps through the phone’s hardware, which it claims are more secure than standard apps. The phone is also expected to allow the trading of native crypto coins without any mining fee. According to their website, there are eight major features of HTC Exodus:

Trusted hardware

Tons of protocols

Universal Wallet

Trusted UI

Save your ID and data on phone

DApps on mobile

Phone will act as a node of Ethereum and Bitcoin

Exodus forum for the users

Initially, it will launch with support for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dfinity networks, and Lightning Network, but the company says it will eventually support the entire blockchain ecosystem. HTC plans on creating a native blockchain network with all eExodus phones, in an effort to double and triple the number of nodes of Ethereum and Bitcoin.

Release date of HTC Exodus

HTC Exodus to run separately from main business

The HTC Exodus exists separately from HTC’s main phone business, and it is not the same phone planned for HTC’s May 23 announcement. In fact, the Exodus is one initiative from Phil Chen, HTC’s new decentralized chief officer, who will focus on the company’s blockchain and cryptocurrency efforts. Chen previously ran the HTC Vive VR headset business.

“The phone is the most prevalent device in this world. It will act as the hub and agent of decentralization,” Chen said in a statement. “It will enable a completely new class and paradigm of interactions, from games to messaging to wallets.”

“Through the Exodus, we are also excited to be supporting underlying protocols such as Bitcoin, Lightning Networks, Ethereum, Dfinity, and more,” Chen wrote in a blog post accompanying the announcement. “We would like to support the entire blockchain ecosystem, and in the next few months we’ll be announcing many more exciting partnerships together. Together, we want to craft the best blockchain & decentralized application experiences to end consumers.”

HTC Exodus: conclusions

HTC joins a growing list of top technology companies foraying into blockchain. Earlier this month, Facebook launched a new blockchain division as part of its management shuffle. The company is also said to be exploring the possibilities of launching its own cryptocurrency. Last month Samsung was reported to be building a blockchain network, but for its own global supply management. Huawei has also been rumoured to be working on a blockchain phone.

While the device was largely welcomed on social media by those within the cryptocurrency space, some suggested HTC was the latest firm to use the term ‘blockchain’ as a marketing tool.

Blockchain (and Bitcoin) are very much nascent technologies right now. However, although they are full of promise and potential there is still some way to go before they will achieve mainstream adoption. Only time will tell if the HTC Exodus ends up being another step towards blockchain reaching the masses.

29 July 2018 Update: Charlie Lee to join HTC Exodus as their advisor

Litecoin creator Charlie Lee has announced that HTC’s new blockchain-compatible smartphone Exodus will support Litecoin. And that’s not all – he is joining the HTC Exodus development team as an advisor. The news was announced on Twitter, as follows:

Each of Basic Attention Token, Stellar, Zcash and 0x have added around $100m to their market caps, which will likely increase as, attention and speculation grows. It’s very likely the combined effect of the Coinbase tweet will shortly be over a billion dollars.

Time will tell to see how fast Coinbase is able to list these new digital assets, but given that they are all listed on other major exchanges none of the technology should be particularly novel.

Coinbase announced that they would list IOHK’s other cryptocurrency, Ethereum Classic, one month ago and that is yet to be listed, so we can comfortably assume that none of these assets will be listed in the coming weeks. A conservative estimate suggests an October release would be the earliest time to expect any of the recent announcement to be available.

For now, each of the 5 currencies have experienced a 10% jump which is welcome news to many.

In a rare, actually super interesting announcement, Coinbase is now exploring the following cryptocurrencies, with the intention of listing each of them “across the widest variety of products in each jurisdiction.”

Cardano (ADA)
The Cardano protocol was created by Charles Hoskinson, one of the co-founders of Ethereum. Cardano’s Bitcoin-like Settlement Layer (CSL) mainnet is live and it has a functional wallet for its built-in ADA cryptocurrency. It has also taken a different technical direction from other blockchains on several axes, like its Ouroborosproof-of-stake algorithm, its use of Haskell, and its focus on formal verification. While Cardano’s Computation Layer (CCL) is not yet live, the project has published long-term roadmaps, has shipped working software, and appears to have a growing community.

Basic Attention Token (BAT)
The Basic Attention Token (BAT) is the internal token of the Brave browser. The initial purpose of the BAT is to allow advertisers to pay for user attention when they view ads via Brave, but it can potentially be used as a general digital currency for Brave user interactions with arbitrary websites. Brave announced that they have recently passed 3 million monthly users and are in the top 10 list in the Google Play store in more than 20 countries. More than 18,000 verified publishers are using Brave across 4,500 websites and 13,500 YouTube and Twitch streamer accounts. The CEO of Brave is Brendan Eich, the inventor of Javascript and co-founder of Mozilla and Firefox, and the company is funded by Founders Fund and Digital Currency Group, among others.

Stellar Lumens (XLM)
Stellar is an open-source protocol for value exchange developed by Stanford CS professor David Mazieres, Rust language author Graydon Hoare, and Jed McCaleb. Lumens (XLM) are the native asset of the Stellar network. Stellar’s consensus protocol is different from proof-of-work in that it allows and requires individual nodes to choose the set of other nodes they trust as a group (a “quorum slice”) to give them accurate information about the state of the Stellar network. Stellar allows for the creation of anchors that can issue assets, use bridge servers to interface with existing banks, and follow Stellar’s compliance protocol. Initially funded by Stripe, Stellar’s board members include Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois, Stripe cofounder Patrick Collison, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, YCombinator President Sam Altman, MIT DCI head Joi Ito, and AngelList founder Naval Ravikant.

Zcash (ZEC)
Zcash is a cryptocurrency which uses recent advances in cryptography to allow users to protect the privacy of transactions at their discretion. The distinction between Zcash’s “transparent” and “shielded” transactions is analogous to the distinction between unencrypted HTTP and encrypted HTTPS. In both cases, the unencrypted/transparent version of the protocol allows third parties to see metadata associated with the communication or transaction, while the encrypted/shielded version protects this information. The Zcash protocol has been live since 2016 and the development team has published technical improvements that may reduce the memory consumption associated with transaction privacy by 98%.

0x (ZRX)
0x is an open protocol that allows ERC20 tokens to be traded on the Ethereum blockchain. ZRX is the native utility token of the 0x protocol, and several dozen independent projects have been built with the 0x technology, including relays and decentralized exchanges with tens of millions of dollars in collective transaction volume to date. The project has shipped a number of tools for developers, including Javascript, Solidity, and Web3 libraries, and has mostly adhered to the roadmap outlined in their whitepaper.

Lightning Network

Introduction to the Lightning Network

The Lightning Network is a decentralized network using smart contract functionality in the blockchain to enable instant payments across a network of participants.

What does this mean?

The Lightning Network effectively creates a layer on top of Bitcoin, enabling fast and cheap transactions which can net settle to the bitcoin blockchain.

For example, say that I wanted to pay you for each hour of work you do for me. We would open up a lightning channel, and as the time passed by, periodic payments would be made from my wallet to yours. When you are done working, we would close the channel and settle the net amount on the bitcoin blockchain.

Due to the fact that every transaction is just between me and you, they don’t need to be broadcast to the whole network, and therefore they are almost instantaneous. Also, because there are no miners that need incentivizing, transaction fees are low or even non-existent.

How it works

A multisig wallet is first set up between two parties who want to transact. This wallet holds some bitcoin and its address is then saved to the bitcoin blockchain. This sets up the payment channel.

The two parties can now conduct an unlimited number of transactions without ever touching the information stored on the blockchain. With each transaction, both parties sign an updated balance sheet to always reflect how much of the Bitcoin stored in the wallet belongs to each.

Once parties no longer wish to transact, say at the end of the work or a watched video, they close out the channel; the resulting balance is registered on the blockchain. In the event of a dispute, both parties can use the most recently signed balance sheet to recover their share of the wallet.

Development of the technology got a significant boost with the adoption of SegWit on the Bitcoin and Litecoin networks. Without the upgrade’s transaction malleability fix, transactions on the lightning network would have been too risky to be practical.

Why do we need it?

Well cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, are being used a lot right now. Check out this graph.

This shows that (in recent history) the fewest number of transactions happened in August 17, and it was 131,875 in a single day. And that’s the fewest. In the Proof Of Work system that Bitcoin uses, this means that it’s down to the miners to validate each transaction, and the fact is that even the huge number of miners can’t keep up with the astounding number of transactions on the network. This is why we need a solution to reduce the number of transactions.

Risk

There is some risk with the Lightning Network. Because it doesn’t have the full security of a blockchain behind it, the Lightning Network will not be as secure, which means that it’s likely we will see it being used for just small or even microtransactions, which carry a lower risk. Larger transfers that require decentralized security are more likely to be done on the original layer.

When can we use it?

While this technology was initially developed for use with Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies have decided to create their own implementations to run on their own blockchain.

Three of the top startups developing this software recently released their findings. ACINQ, Blockstream and Lightning Labs announcements effectively bring Lightning closer to public launch, and therefore a solution to one of the most hotly discussed issues with Bitcoin (namely it’s capacity)

Controversy

As with most things in the cryptocurrency space, Lightning Network is not without controversy. A report by Diar has shown that the Lightning network has only got a 100% success rate for currency up to 3 cents. For $5 there’s a 50% chance it’ll fall through, and for $490 (the maximum currently allowed) there is only a 1% chance the transaction will succeed!

The top 5 altcoins of 2018: Cardano, Nano, 0x, Stellar and NEO

For new entrants into the world of cryptocurrency Bitcoin attracts most of the attention.. There are, however, a growing number of alternative coins, or altcoins that are providing new solutions and becoming popular in their own right. The following post looks at our top 5 altcoins of 2018: Cardano, Nano, 0x, Stellar and NEO.

Our top 5 altcoins with a bright future ahead!

We believe the following altcoins are tipped for great success in 2018:

Cardano

Firstly, we will look at our top altcoin, Cardano. The platform was launched in September 2017. It has since gradually grown to dominance in the digital market. About 95% of its coin offerings when it started were from Japan, so it was dubbed “Ethereum of Japan”.

Cardano was created as a decentralized platform for smart contracts. The division of its computational layers into a basic layer that handles ADA tokens and another for placing smart contracts is one of its most notable difference from other platforms. Cardano uses Ouroboros, a Proof of Stake (PoS) algorithm for determining how individual nodes reach a consensus. This is a critical aspect of the general support infrastructure for the ADA cryptocurrency. Ouroboros is a major innovation that has revolutionized blockchain technology.

Cardano offers a blockchain environment which supports financial applications in a secure and efficient way. It could also come to offer e-commerce providers a structure where they can operate with the benefits of the blockchain, as well as obeying rules of the regulators overseeing them.

Cardano stands out as the only cryptocurrency which is founded on a scientific philosophy. By providing advanced contract handling features, the cryptocurrency has garnered a loyal following of traders, investors and enthusiasts. Investors and traders are attracted to its outstanding characteristics. Cardano makes it possible to create sustainable systems for altcoins. Furthermore, development of its platform is easy thanks to its open-source, peer-reviewed system. The team supporting the cryptocurrency is also very active. As a result, it is stable and capable of surviving the fluctuations of the altcoin markets.

On February 1st, 2018, Cardano launched a hardware wallet for its consumers. Its e-Wallet known as Daedalus is unique in that it can activate independent, decentralized applications in the cryptocurrency’s Blockchain. Not only is the wallet accessible, it is highly secure. Refined algorithms are used to keep the contents safe from any digital threats. As such, investors can rest assured that their Cardano coins are safe.

Seeing as its foundation is solid and the altcoin provides practical benefits, the altcoin’s price has been steadily rising ever since launch in September 2017. Boasting a dedicated team, thriving community and unique innovations, Cardano has risen gradually to become one of the most promising altcoins today. The cryptocurrency is also up to some exciting innovations which are guaranteed to put it at the top of the list among the heavyweight altcoins this year.

Nano

Our second altcoin choice is Nano. With its rebranding from Raiblocks, Nano has become a household name and it has endeared many traders and investors. When the name changed, Nano’s price jumped by 38% with a ripple effect resulting in its market capitalization of $1.3 billion.

One of the biggest advantages of Nano are its lack of fees, scalability, and instantaneous transactions. Because of the lightweight protocol, there are no fees for transactions. Additionally, transactions are taken care of independently, with each transaction fitting with a UDP packet, preventing block size-related problems. The beauty of the ecosystem is that it used minimal resources; you do not need any high level hardware for mining the coin, thus zero fees will be sustained into the future.

It is also highly scalable thanks to the use of logarithms of data sets using tree-like structures. Lastly, the transactions are instantaneous since they precache the system’s anti-spam Proof of Work (PoW) to use with the following transaction following completion of each transaction. There might still be a delay for an ongoing transaction, but that helps prevent spam. The platform’s scalability and real-time free transactions are one of the reasons that its becoming popular day by day among the experts.

In 2018, the Nano(NANO) team plans to develop its light wallet and add chain pruning to reduce the size of the chain.

Major goals for the future include the protocol becoming an internet standard that is controlled by a diverse grouping of people from various areas instead of a single person or small group.

The team also wants to add IPv6 multicast to the transaction broadcasting so everyone who wants to can see the announcement for a transaction. The team hopes to have current payment providers accept the NANO tokens just like they would a fiat currency.

Among the major exchanges and recognition from Charlie Lee (founder of Litecoin), now Nano’s future will be bright. Experts in the cryptocurrency world are also happy about the strides that digital coin is transforming its functionality and now its solving many real-life problems of the consumers. Nano is set to make it as one of the most popular cryptocurrencies of the future.

0x

Our third favourite altcoin is 0x. The team behind the 0x protocol includes three former Coinbase employees: Fred Eshram, Olaf Carlson-Wee, and Linda Xie. Xie in particular has been very active in promoting the decentralised protocol and in selling its virtues. In a recent interview with CoinDesk, she outlined how the Bitcoin protocol underserves cryptocurrencies and how there is a gap in the market for a bridging block such as 0x.

ZRX, or the 0x protocol, is essentially a bridge between decentralised apps (dApps), and it enables links between digital currencies for the sake of trading. For example, 0x is compatible with Ethereum, one of the leading cryptocurrencies. The 0x protocol’s compatibility with other currencies makes it a strong contender for decentralised trading.

The 0x protocol is one of the closest yet to the requirements of the GDAX framework. It promotes the following values: serving open financial markets, solving problems and creating value, offering economic freedom, and providing decentralisation. As Linda Xie herself notes, 0x fits perfectly with the GDAX framework and it would fit easily into existing exchanges as a result. Xie acted as an advisor to the creation of the framework, and is perfectly placed to understand its requirements and challenges.

Xie is working with Jordan Clifford (another Coinbase veteran) on investment project Scalar Capital, which is thought to have invested heavily in ZRX. She says that 0x should be bought and held with the aim of long term gains, and she sees the importance of emphasising market control, not centralised control, over cryptocurrencies. “If they’re going to be doing a decentralised governance system, the project founders or the coin creators themselves shouldn’t have a majority of these coins,” notes Xie.

The backers and founders are skilled and knowledgeable in crypto legal compliance, in transaction facilitation and in understanding the market – making 0x one of the stronger emerging digital tokens.

Stellar

Stellar is another altcoin we believe has a bright future ahead. In Stellar’s own words, they “spent 2017 on a rocketship strapped to a missile strapped to an off-brand roman candle made of pure gains.”T he Stellar team has some big plans to continue these positive trends for 2018 as well. Their two main goals for this year are the Stellar Decentralized Exchange and Lightning Network integration.

Founded in 2014, the development team behind Stellar is focused on eradicating poverty and maximizing potential of every individual. The blockchain technology which comes at a very low cost makes use of its currency called lumens for various charitable causes. Stellar also plans to give away 95% of the total stock of its currency.

According to Stellar’s website, it is a decentralized network that is capable of connecting payment procedures, banking systems, and customers. The integration is done in a way that would enable the digital transaction of money in a swifter and more reliable way as well as ensure negligible transaction costs.

At the end of 2017, a team of experienced experts was recruited to design a front-end for Stellar’s intrinsic decentralized exchange. The project is called SDEX and internal prototypes are under construction. SDEX will be the state-of-the-art front-end that will result in a product of the fundamental technology. SDEX will aid protocol-level, on-chain transactions for any Stellar coin and the application will create liquidity to broaden the choice of assets and reduce the spreads.

In order to make sure that SDEX can successfully keep up in competition with other significant exchanges, the team behind Stellar plans to elevate the number of market-makers and anchors on Stellar’s network. The exchange will be used to stimulate the team’s vision of dealing with more real-world assets on the blockchain network of Stellar. More and more ICOs are coming to Stellar because of its low transaction rates, high transaction speeds, and scalability. Stellar’s team is committed to incorporating a large range of financial tools on the network. SDEX will be the first of a kind exchange for all Stellar tokens and the team envisions a future where several virtual assets, oil futures and carbon credits will be transacted together at cheap and quick rates

Stellar’s team plans to keep on awarding lumens via the Stellar Build Challenge to individuals and business organizations that make contributions to the ecosystem of Stellar.

One of the strongest points of the Stellar story is the innovation of technology. The team has taken note of the market-generated demand for more privately-enabled transactions on the Stellar network. Hence, the integration of the lightning network is an agenda for 2018. The lightning network will have a significant beneficial impact on Stellar’s long-term security and scalability. There has been awareness regarding lightning’s capability for improving Stellar’s potential for a long time.

While upgradations are implemented improving the performance of Stellar, it is crucial to ensure that the blockchain network remains robust and secure. Hence the team plans to reduce the surface of attack at the protocol level by integrating invariant support (the checks will be consistently conducted by the validator). These checks will alleviate the effect of bugs on the ledger state.

The team behind Stellar is focused on easing the process of running a full validator. In order to ensure the maximum decentralization of the Stellar network, the overhead of running nodes must be maintained at a minimum level. By rendering the nodes steadfast and self-supporting, the node operators can invest their time into other activities. The future plan is to make enhancements which would enable the supervision of the health of Stellar’s blockchain network and the way data is transacted through nodes. For this, some statistical data of peer-to-peer code will be reviewed by the team.

IBM is already using Stellar Lumens and there is much more coming out in Q2, 2018. The biggest news is that Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will soon be launched on the coin Stellar. Stellar Lumens are used as the primary currency that builds a strong bridge between IBM clients and its UPS or Universal Payment Solution. Thus, there is a huge possibility that Stellar can reach the highs of $ 1 by Q4 2018.

NEO

Last but not least is our fifth top altcoin, NEO. One of the major factors which is driving growth for NEO is the support of the Chinese government and its robust technology.

NEO, which was originally called AntShares, was created in 2014 by Da Hongfei in China. It is the biggest cryptocurrency which has emerged from China. NEO, like Ethereum, is a platform designed for developing Decentralized applications (Dapps), Smart contracts and ICOs. Because of this close resemblance to Ethereum, NEO is often referred to as the “Chinese Ethereum”.

NEO offers many technological advantages over Ethereum. NEO can handle about 10,000 transactions per second whereas the Ethereum blockchain currently supports around 15 transactions per second.

NEO supports programming in multiple languages like C++, C#, Go, and Java, whereas Ethereum only supports one language — Solidity. This has made NEO quite popular among the developer community, as they can use NEO’s platform in the language they already know rather than have to learn to a new one.

In 2018, NEO is expected to build an infrastructure for achieving their vision of building the Smart Economy. The basic idea of the smart economy revolves around digitizing real-world physical assets like cars, houses or anything else that you can think of. These digitized assets can then be sold, traded, and leveraged through smart contracts. With such aggressive plans, a good team, and rising prices, NEO is definitely one of the best altcoins 2018.

Do you agree with our top 5 altcoins? If not, let us know what your top altcoins are for 2018?

Nano vs Bitcoin Cash

In this article we will be discussing Nano vs Bitcoin Cash. As people begin to see the flaws of Bitcoin, and invest elsewhere, we see coins like Nano and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) picking up investment. In this article, we will look at these two cryptocurrencies and evaluate which is the stronger currency of the two.

Nano vs Bitcoin Cash – which cryptocurrency is the leader of the pack?!

What is Nano?

Nano has been tipped to become the next Bitcoin. The main reason for its fast growth and success is because of its architecture. Though the cryptocurrency operates by providing a decentralized model of bypassing centralized institutions such as banks, it design utilizes block-lattice architecture and delegated Proof of Stake (PoS). This eliminates the need for miners, makes the network fast, and lighter.

These unique features and applications mean that Nano is indeed better than Bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies that use Proof of Work (PoW) and standard Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus models.

What is Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that was developed from the Bitcoin Core. Bitcoin Cash was formed as a hard fork of Bitcoin. In some cases, you will get the cryptocurrency being referred simply as an upgraded/ peeled/ or forked version of Bitcoin core software released in August 2017. A further Bitcoin Cash hard fork took place in May 2018.

We will now evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of Nano vs Bitcoin Cash.

An analysis of Nano vs Bitcoin Cash: advantages & disadvantages

What are the advantages of Nano?

No transaction costs

If you have some cash and want to send abroad using the banking system, the chances are that it will be very expensive. Even the cryptos that came earlier such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are still very expensive. For example, the cost of sending cash using Bitcoin network was more than $ 50 in January of 2018. However, Nano has ushered a new dawn in cryptocurrencies where users can make transactions for free. This is one of the benefits drawing a lot of people to the network.

Open source & anonymous

One notable thing about cash stored in the bank is that bank account details can easily get leaked to third parties. Worse still, your bank account can easily get frozen if a court battle whirls to your doorstep. However, Nano is an open source and anonymous network that is hidden from third parties.

The main network that allows users to own the network

When people use the standard payment services such as PayPal, MasterCard, and banking, they feel passive. Once they make the savings or send cash, they get the sense of accomplishment and move away. Like other cryptocurrencies, Nano helps people to join, use, and own the network. This means that you are part of the network and your vote will be required when consensus is needed.

One of the most secure networks

When people join the cryptocurrency network, they are interested in getting the most secure option for their assets. The delegated proof-of-stake model used in the Nano system helps to keep it secure from miners who might have malicious intentions.

The commitment of the Nano development team has also managed to keep the system free from hackers since inception. These considerations have won the Nano the tag of the most secure blockchain in the crypto world.

Allows users to operate with utmost freedom

If you want to send cash abroad on the weekend or at night, the chances are that it will be impossible. Even those that have some mobile activated applications only allow people to send a limited amount of cash. However, Nano cryptocurrency network is different. The crypto network allows users to operate with utmost freedom. Whether it is at weekend, public holiday, or at night, you are sure of being able to use the network.

The cryptocurrency value and community has been growing steadily

The effectiveness of a crypto network is partly gauged by its value and community. For Nano, these parameters have been experiencing positive growth in since inception. As the value took an upward trend early in 2018, the crypto community also kept growing. Many people believe that this growth will keep growing and the crypto could become the next Bitcoin.

What are the disadvantages of Nano?

While the benefits associated with Nano are very many and appealing, it is important to appreciate that the network also comes with a lot of risks. Like other cryptocurrencies, users in the Nano network operate anonymously. While this is seen in many ways as an advantage, it is also a great demerit. The anonymity makes it easy for users to fall to scammers. Other risks of operating in the Nano network include.

Risk of attack by hackers

Though the Nano network development team has been working extra hard to keep the network safe, and no successful attack has been reported since inception, you cannot be 100% secure.

The risk of new and more appealing cryptocurrencies

The third generation cryptocurrencies such as Nano are mainly aimed at addressing shortcomings noted in the previous networks. For example, Nano targets addressing shortcomings noted in the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks. However, newer and more advanced cryptocurrencies are also likely to emerge in the future and pull down the appeal of Nano. This could lower its value and diminish the trust people have in it.

High volatility

Cryptocurrencies such as Nano have demonstrated to be highly volatile. Every time that something related to the crypto industry takes place, Nano and other cryptocurrencies respond immediately. When China announced that it was going to burn ICOs (Initial Coin Offering), Nano value responded by shifting downwards. A similar downward shift was noted when a cryptocurrency exchange was hacked in South Korea towards the end of 2017.

The looming regulations

Every country in the globe is working on some form of regulation to help control cryptocurrencies. From China to the United States, the governments are feeling threatened by the cryptocurrencies so much that they want to limit their growth. China has already outlawed ICOs and looks committed to suppressing other crypto related activities. If most countries pass harsh regulations as anticipated, there is a risk that adoption and use of Nano could go down or diminish completely.

Direct threat to the banking system

While the first and second generation cryptocurrencies were aimed directly offering an alternative to banks, third generation cryptocurrencies have been working on partnerships. For example, OmiseGO and Ripple provide banks with a platform for enhancing payment as opposed to looking like a direct threat. But Nano architecture aims at replacing the banks especially with its zero transaction fee. This could deny Nano support from such financial institutions as they channel their clients to other friendly networks such as Ripple.

What are the advantages of Bitcoin Cash?

The fast growth of blockchain technologies is an indication of the public acceptance and approval. At first, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were considered disruptive and a threat to the conventional institutions such as banks. But the narrative has changed over time. Today, even governments are starting to appreciate the huge benefits that come with using blockchain technologies. Bitcoin Cash has particularly stood out because of its unique design and fast growing value. Here are the main benefits to anticipate after joining the network.

Bitcoin Cash is completely anonymous

The main attraction drawing more users to the BCH network is the high level of privacy. The team behind Bitcoin Cash network targeted enhancing anonymity for all their operations. From traders to individuals, no one wants third parties such as banks to know their personal details. All the transactional info in Bitcoin Cash network are encrypted so that even miners who confirm transactions can only ascertain the amount but not the owners.

Payment assured across the globe

If you want to make payment on a weekend, during public holidays, or at night through the bank, it is impossible. Most of these institutions only work between 8 am and 4 pm. However, Bitcoin Cash empowers you to make payments any time of the day or night. Because you have the network right in the wallet or node, sending payment is only a click away. This is the freedom that many have yearned to get for years.

The network is owned by users

When you join the Bitcoin Cash network, it becomes yours. That is right. The Bitcoin Cash network is owned by users. You are part of the system and will be involved in making the decisions on the network. Instead of relying on a centralized authority, Bitcoin Cash relies on the consensus of users spread on different nodes in the network.

Freedom from third-party seizures

If your cash is in the bank, the risk of getting seized is very high. A case can easily whirlwind into your doorstep and drag you to court. Whether it is a social media or workplace issue, you can easily get involved without necessarily committing a criminal offense. With such risks, the savings in the bank are an easy target by lawyers. However, joining and storing your fund in Bitcoin Cash provides the freedom from third-party seizures. You operate anonymously and at no point will the court freeze your Bitcoin Cash account.

The value of Bitcoin Cash continues to grow rapidly

As more cryptocurrencies enter into the fast-growing industry, users want to join those that give them better prospects for growth. Bitcoin Cash is one of them. Though it was only 5 months by close of 2017, it managed to hit top five most valuable cryptocurrencies by then. Its growth has been remarkable with experts in cryptocurrencies indicating that it could easily rival Bitcoin.

What are the disadvantages of Bitcoin Cash?

Just like Bitcoin Cash has numerous benefits, it also comes with a number of risks that users should know of. The hacking in a South Korean exchange at the end of 2017 saw many cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin Cash slump in value. Therefore, no one can be sure of what will happen to Bitcoin Cash in the next few days, months or years. Here are the main disadvantages associated with Bitcoin Cash.

The risk of being overtaken by newer cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin Cash was forked from Bitcoin to create a new and more effective cryptocurrency. With new cryptocurrencies joining the industry at a supersonic speed, the risk of Bitcoin Cash getting overtaken by newer and more effective networks is rather high. This could see Bitcoin Cash getting relegated to the back seat as people scramble for the new option.

The looming regulation

From the US to China, the topic of cryptocurrencies is a hot potato issue. There is a general feeling that many governments are about to implement laws aimed at punishing cryptocurrencies. For example, Russia and Thailand have cautioned their traders that upcoming laws could make their cryptocurrency related operations illegal. The looming regulations are making a lot of people shy away and could pull down the value of Bitcoin Cash within hours after getting passed into law.

The danger of losing Bitcoin Cash

Like other cryptocurrencies, your Bitcoin Cash can also be lost. You could easily lose BCH through hacking of the personal computer, attack on the exchange, or sending to the wrong address. The danger of losing BCH is that they are very difficult to restore. In most of the situations such as sending BCH to the wrong address or getting hacked means that the coins are gone forever.

The risk of getting involved in scams

The anonymous nature of Bitcoin Cash has become an instant attraction to fraudsters. Because the transactions are completely encrypted, scammers are sure that they cannot get discovered. This puts users at a risk of getting drawn to scams without knowing. Some scammers often release fake ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and steal from unsuspecting clients. Others might opt to acquire or make fake products and sell through the BCH network. You must be extra careful to only buy and carry transactions with trusted addresses.

High volatility

While the fast-rising demand for cryptocurrencies has drawn a lot of people into the industry, the level of volatility is very worrying. Within a very short moment, the value of Bitcoin Cash can plummet and cause huge losses. This has been experienced in other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum during the DAO attack and Bitcoin during the Silk Road Scandal.

The Com

Many people have said that the whole idea of Bitcoin Cash was little more than a scam to gain money from the Bitcoin name. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against people who are claiming Bitcoin Cash as being ‘the real bitcoin’, which is marring the currencies reputation.

Nano vs Bitcoin Cash: evauation & conclusion

In the Nano vs Bitcoin Cash debate, both have their advantages and disadvantages as we have seen. However, overall, Nano seems to have the largest scope for growth. The recent ‘‘Bitgrail hack‘ wasn’t a flaw with the technology of the network – the price dip was purely speculative and emotional.

Many coins have been hit hard by the 2018 ‘bear market’ but it seems in comparison Bitcoin Cash has been hit the hardest. Newer altcoins are taking over. Furthermore, an article was recently published stating how Bitcoin Cash might be in trouble. Meanwhile, Nano is among the top coins trading today.

Having evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of the two cryptocurrencies, it would seem in the Nano vs Bitcoin Cash debate, Nano is the stronger cryptocurrency of the two. It is also a hot contender for the most promising cryptocurrency of 2018.

Why Charles Hoskinson left Ethereum

In The Beginning

Charles Hoskinson fell into the crypto space partially by accident. He started off by reading a few whitepapers, as he had a significant interest in P2P Technologies. He has admitted to having a “Libertarian cypherpunk blend“, which many of the first cryptocurrency enthusiasts would admit to. Hoskinson actually started in the scene by looking at Bitcoin. He formed the ‘Bitcoin Education Project’ which by his description was aimed at “bringing lot’s of people to Bitcoin and teach them why the revolution is so magical and so amazing“. This project was formed as a Udemy class, with over 70,000 students.

Following on from that success, and with the knowledge gained from so many students, he decided in around 2013 to get involved more deeply. One of the hottest topics at the time was around decentralized exchanges and very stable cryptocurrencies. That project was called Bitshares and was partially successful.

Foundation of Ethereum

One of the things that Charles Hoskinson found so difficult was how difficult it was to build a programming language. At this time many others including Vitalik Buterin were finding the same issue, and their solutions were similar in concept – namely “What would happen if we had a programming language on top of the protocol?“. This was the first idea of smart contracts. Hoskinson was involved with Ethereum for around 6 months, helping the project “find its identity, find its footing [and] find its marketing”. In an interview, about Etherum Charles Hoskinson said “The big issue, however, was that when they first began the project it was an aggregation of a lot of philosophies, properties, and people. When I came in, I was the unifier to keep all these tribes running and to solve the most important component: How are we going to get funded?”

There then, however, came a decision to be made. Ethereum was doing well, but needed more funding. There was a decision to be made. Do they take VC funding, or not. Involving a VC would likely require governance and the project to be a full for-profit entity. Whereas Hoskinson wanted the project to be more of a non-profit. Charles Hoskinson goes on to say “Concisely, we had a philosophical fight about whether to take VC money or not and I was on the losing side of the fight. I was mutually pushed out of the organization and went on to do other things while they went on to form the foundation.”

The Fight

As an outsider, we’ll never know the scale of the “fight” or just how mutual the decision to leave was, but it was at that point he then decided to leave the project to Buterin and others to continue. I personally think any project like this that has true aims to change the world has to be non-profit, because at some point there’s going to be a conflict between what is best for the future, and what makes the most money, so controversially I would agree with Hoskinson. Having said that, in our capitalist world, for-profit companies do succeed, and we can’t deny the growth and popularity of Ethereum.

The Future

At this point, he said “I’m not going to do this again, I’m not going to do protocols. What I’m going to do is create a factory for protocols”. The idea behind this was to build out both a research firm and an engineering firm, really looking into the science behind cryptocurrencies and only dealing with the specific people that they choose, in a very opinionated way. This project has become the Cardano project, and is growing successfully.

Some would say the Cardano project is even beating Etherum at this point. They may not have the market cap, but even 1.5 years behind Ethereum, Cardano is already utilising a Proof Of Stake alorigthm, while Ethereum is still on the flawed Proof Of Work system, and may well be until next year.